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Vienna City Council continues budget talks

By James Dobbs 3 min read

VIENNA -- Vienna City Council met on Thursday to hear presentations from an outside agency and some city officials as part of its budget preparation process.

Mark Lewis, President and CEO of the Greater Parkersburg Convention and Visitors Bureau, spoke with council, as did city Parks Director Steve Black and Mayor Randy Rapp.

Lewis said CVBs, like the one serving the Mid-Ohio Valley, are the destination marketing organization for their areas around the state. They get their funding from the hotel/motel tax that is collected on every room night sold in Wood County he said, adding they have been hurting during the pandemic because people stopped staying in hotels.

"We rebounded this past year to about three quarters of our regular revenues, but it created a very challenging set of circumstances for us, not only because our funding was cut, but our hoteliers were struggling, restaurants, all of the people we promote were having a difficult time," he said.

Lewis said they reacted by applying for federal funding, receiving a $150,000 SBA loan, and paycheck protection program, among other things. He said they are now in the position to purchase a new visitor center. He said this would give them the opportunity to spread the word about restaurants, shops and other attractions. There will be a temporary center for this year, because of material shortages and the new revamped building in the former Farmers Market in downtown Parkersburg should be open next year.

Also during Thursday's meeting, Black discussed the budgets of Vienna's parks department, recreation and the swimming pool. Black started the discussion by asking for the $2-per-hour across the board raises for his eight employees. He said with the gross wages, taxes and benefits it comes to $33,280.

He asked for two of his S-3 employees to receive a pay grade increase to S-4. Black requested a $4-per-hour increase for himself. He said it would $8,320. He asked for additional wages under recreation to cover the additional costs for umpires, concession workers and gate workers for tournaments they are planning to have.

Black read off of a list of his highlights of what he felt was most important. This included: electrical maintenance for the park for $34,000, approximately $7,000 for projects in McDonough Wildlife Refuge, $7,500 for a small shelter at Lake Betsy. He asked for $165,000 to replace the McDonough park restrooms and $360,500 for lights, playground pieces, exercise pieces, paving, walkways and concrete work.

Rapp recognized Vienna Police Chief Mike Pifer and the Parkersburg Violent Crime and Narcotics Task force by reading a letter the Wood County Prosecuting Attorney. The PNTF was named the 2021 task force of the year. Pifer said the Parkersburg Police Department, the Vienna Police Department, the Wood County Sheriff's office, the West Virginia State Police Department and the Williamstown Police Department are all a part of the task force. He said the members of the task force usually do long term, covert-type investigations for illicit substances and narcotics.

The letter stated that the task force conducted 292 investigations, which resulted in approximately 3.68 pounds of fentanyl, 25.13 pounds of methamphetamine, 49.75 pounds of marijuana and 48 firearms being removed from the community. Pifer said collectively the amount of drugs that were removed, was close to a million dollars in street value.

James Dobbs can be reached at jdobbs@newsandsentinel.com

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